Major Characters
Toan
Toan was the youngest son of Minh and Hoa, and brother of the twins, Son and Hoang. The earliest memory he recalled was when he was five years old, and his father was taken away by officials, which he blamed himself for because he was the one who told them where to find his father.
He and his family lived in Rach Gia, Vietnam. Along with them, he went on a boat to Malaysia with other refugees, landing on an island called Janganoon, and then were moved to a smaller island called Pulau Bisa, where all refugees were to be held, before his family’s eventual plane trip to Australia.
Toan is an intelligent young boy, who had no trouble fitting in at school shortly after their arrival at Cabramatta. His best friend was his first cousin, Linh, whom he has a close relationship with.
Linh
Linh was the daughter of Mai and Phat, younger sister of Phuong, and first cousin to Toan and his brothers. She is almost two years older than he is. She and Phuong are both orphaned. Her father ,Phat, never returned after being taken away by officials when she was very young. Her mother Mai, committed suicide after being taken captive by pirates while their boat was still on the South China Sea, before their arrival at Malaysia.
Linh is known to be a reserved and secretive person, who never shows a great deal of emotion in front of others. She wants to appear strong, tough, able to handle anything, and makes sure that no one ever sees her cry. She is very close to her cousin, Toan, who she grew up with. In Australia, their Uncle Minh and Aunt Hoa are caring for her and Phuong.
Minor Characters
Minh
Minh was the husband of Hoa, and father to the twins, Hoang and Son and to his youngest, Toan. He was the son of Vo Van Chau. He was the one who took his family away from Rach Gia for a ‘taste of freedom’. He was taken away by officials to a re-education camp in Long Xuyen , which was for people who were involved in some way during the war. One of his friends, Nguyen Quang Vu dies in the camp. Minh was released after six months. He converted all his family’s savings into gold, in the hope that they might escape Rach Gia one day. Minh took care of his nieces after the passing of their mother and his sister, Mai.
Vo Van Chau
Vo Van Chau was the husband of Ma Kim Tuyet, father of Minh and grandfather of Toan and Linh. He originated from Shinan, southern China. When he was 13, he came to Vietnam to build a life. He rented a small store at Rach Gia and eventually made enough money to buy the building. This two-storey building became the life and future of his family. But after the war, officials used his building that was not to his liking. Although he was submissive, it shattered him. He died a little while after Minh was released from the re-education camp.
Ma Kim Tuyet
Ma Kim Tuyet is the wife of Vo Van Chau, mother to Minh and his brothers and sisters, and grandmother to Toan and Linh. She was known to be different to others ever since she was a little girl, being described as the one who ‘knew things’. She turned out to be a medium for the Goddess Quan Yin. Her wisdom is defined in her knowledge of occurrences despite the fact that it may have been impossible for her to find out anything otherwise. She knew, by perhaps a feeling, that her family was safe after they had left, and had also that Mai had died. She visited her family many years later in Australia and died there. When her grandson Toan was already an adult, he took her ashes back to her home, in Rach Gia, Vietnam to be buried beside her husband.
Phuong
Phuong is the eldest daughter of Mai and Phat, older sister of Linh and cousin of Toan. She was only 13 years old when the family escaped from Rach Gia. She was very beautiful for her age then, and her mother treated her like an adult. She is 5 years older than Linh. On their way to Malaysia, pirates invade their boat and the leader wanted to take her away, but instead, her mother Mai sacrificed herself, so that the pirates may take her away instead of Phuong. On the island of Pulau Bisa, Phuong starts to associate with Cang and the rest of his gang for all her self-pity and withdrawal. On a near death experience with fire on the island, Cang died after rescuing her life.
Mai
Mai is the wife of the deceased Phat, daughter of Vo Van Chau, sister of Minh, and mother of Phuong and Linh. She was known to be strong, reserved, brave and mostly expressionless, which are similar characteristics her daughter Linh has. She seemed lost after her husband disappeared and never smiled. Her last act of bravery was when she sacrificed herself for her daughter Phuong in the South China Sea where she eventually died from suicide.
Hoa
Hoa was the wife of Minh and mother of Hoang, Son and Toan. She did not know much English when she and her family moved to Australia. She was very supportive of her husband, and helped rear up her orphaned nieces, Phuong and Linh.
Hoang and Son
Hoang and Son are Toan’s older twin brothers.
Chi and Loan
Chi and Loan are sisters of Minh and Mai, and Aunties of Toan and Linh. Chi has seven children.
Dang
Dang was the first son of Vo Van Chau and Ma Kim Tuyet, and the first deceased.
Kieu
Kieu was also on the refugee island of Pulau Bisa with her older brother and his wife. She and Toan met and became fast friends. Kieu’s family was sent to Australia a short while before Toan’s. After ten years, Toan and Linh ran into her in Cabramatta. It turned out that Kieu was very much involved with the infamous Vietnamese gang, Triple K who caused many problems for herself and also for Toan and Linh.
But after several years, Kieu ended up married to Toan with a daughter named Cassie.
Miro
Miroslav was Linh’s boyfriend in Australia, when they were 18. He is of European descent and also became involved the trouble concerning Triple K.
Family Relationships
The Vo Family is a very close-knit family and is very family orientated. Linh, Toan and Phuong are as close as brother and sister, due to the death of Linh and Phuong’s parents.
The amount of respect that the children have for the adults is unbelievable and, to a certain extent, this respect is returned.
Although the family is close, there is still a lack of understanding between the adults and the children, because the children want to fit in and are more adaptive. Throughout the book the closeness of the family deteriorates to the stage where they are almost strangers. The adults don’t want to change but the children have a need to fit in.
Only The Heart
Births, Deaths and Marriages
Births:
First generation: Vo Van Chau married Ma Kim Tuyet and they had six children, three boys -Hung, Minh and Dang, and three daughters-Mai, Chi and Loan. This was the second generation.
Mai married, and she and her husband, Phat, had two daughters –Phuong and Linh.
Minh also married, Hoa, they had three sons –Hoang and Son (twins) and Toan. This was the third generation.
Toan and Kieu had a daughter ,Cassie, this is the fourth generation.
Marriages;
Vo Van Chau and Ma Kim Tuyet
Mai and Phat
Minh and Hoa
Toan and Kieu
Deaths;
Hung was already dead, first born and first buried.
Vo Van Chau, grandfather of Toan, died after his son, Minh, was released from the re-education camp.
Phat, Mai’s husband and father of the girls, was taken away by officials and never returned.
Mai committed suicide after being taken captive by pirates on their way to Malaysia.
Locations
The granmother, Ma Kim Tuyet, and the grandfather, Vo Van Chau, originally came out from China to start a new and better life for their family. When the war broke out in Vietnam, the family decided that they wanted to start a new life in a safer and less volatile country.
Those who left Vietnam were; Mai, Minh and Hoa, Phuong and Linh, Hoang, Son and Toan. Apart from Mai they arrived in Australia via Malaysia (Janganoon, Puala Bisa) and flew out from Kuala Lumpur. They lived in Cabramatta, Auburn and then returned to Cabramatta.
Chi stayed behind and later on we learn that she had a large family, seven children and eight grandchildren.
The grandmother originally stayed when the others left on the boats, her daughter Loan, the youngest child, stayed to look after her. They came to Australia in 1986 and remained here till the grandmother’s death in 1996, until Toan and Kieu return her ashes to her home country.
Gangs
The impact that the pirates have on the Vo family is quite large, as they kidnap Mai and threaten to take Phuong also.
In the refugee camp there is a gang, whose leader is Cang, he saves Phuong fro the fire and dies in the process.
The Cabramatta gang appears when Toan is having lunch with Kieu, a long lost friend from the refugee camp. They make threats towards Toan because of his association with Kieu, of which they don’t approve.
The Vo family seem to be surrounded by gangs and are continuously plagued by the devastation that gangs cause. This affects the way that they live their lives.
Relationships in the gangs
Gangs, like families, provide the members with a sense of belonging, a set of rules to live by, authority figures, a structure to life, security, a system of rewards and punishments-not always fair but generally accepted by the gang members.
Gang members in this book substitute each other for family members as many of them don’t have families or came from bad families. If people’s lives are dislocated, they turn to gangs for the things they’re missing, such as above.
